The Night My World Exploded

January 14th, 2018 – Approximately 18:00 hours.

I was driving. It was dark outside, with plenty of the typical evening rush-hour traffic. I was on my way to back up another officer on a burglar alarm call. After a quick look at my mobile data terminal (MDT) (while stopped at a red light, of course) to confirm the address of where I was headed, I continued driving with the flow of traffic. As I mentally mapped out the rest of my route, I glanced at the traffic lights above the intersection I was about to go through. “Still green,” I thought, as I proceeded to enter the intersection. I was in the middle lane. To my best recollection, there was another vehicle in the left lane, just ahead of me, and there were plenty of vehicles behind me. I caught a glimpse of light out of my left peripheral vision. I turned my head to see the source of the light and in that split second, I knew my patrol car was about to be hit and I had absolutely no way of stopping the collision that was about to occur. Pure, raw fear and adrenaline surged through my veins and the most terrorizing gut feeling of sheer panic hit me. “Oh Jesus!” I cried–a desperate plea for help in the only words I knew how to speak in that moment. A sickening crash and my world exploded.

As the airbag dust began to dissipate slightly and I cleared my lungs as best I could from the smoke and dust, my brain tried to catch up with the events that had just occurred. As my thoughts began to come together, I ran through a quick self-assessment. “I’m still alive” was my first thought. I quickly patted one of my hands along my body…“No broken bones that I can tell of right now. That’s good. Okay, no gushing blood. Even better.” I was unable to see out of the windshield due to the airbag having deployed, so I partially rolled my window down and attempted to bring my vehicle to a safe stop. By the time I managed to get out of the intersection and come to a stopped position, I was partly in the right-hand turn lane and partly on the sidewalk.

Quickly alerting dispatch and my supervisors as to what had happened, I then attempted to open my driver’s side door. Stuck. Great. I passed that bit of info along. After rolling my window down, I could see the vehicle that had struck me was turned 180 degrees from the direction it had initially turned from and was resting at a stop at the top of the median which divided the two directions of traffic.  Due to the impact, there were three lanes of debris that the rest of traffic was continuing to drive through.  I recall the entire windshield wiper fluid container from my car just sitting there in middle of the road with the rest of the wreckage. 

By this point, multiple witnesses had approached the passenger side of my car to check on me.  Assuring them that I was okay, I tried to open my driver’s side door again.  Still jammed shut.  “Okay then, time to get out of this vehicle before someone rear-ends me,” I thought. Moving my laptop mount out of the way as much as possible, I crawled over the center console, the pile of gear and paperwork on the passenger seat that had flown everywhere, and managed to get myself out of the vehicle from the passenger side door.  Witnesses kept asking if I was sure I was okay and reassuring me that they had witnessed the crash and that I had definitely had the green light when I went through the intersection.

Another bystander had brought the driver of the vehicle that hit me over to the sidewalk area. Still riding the adrenaline high, I limped over to where they were to make sure the driver was okay. After ensuring that she did not have any life threatening injuries, I asked the witnesses to stay on scene to give statements to the other officers who were responding.

Shortly thereafter, my lieutenant showed up and asked me how I was doing.  “I was hit pretty hard,” I stated.  It was a fact, not a complaint.  “Well,” he said, “there’s a bunch of helicopters and stuff …” “Helicopter?  No, I don’t need a helicopter!”  He eyed me.  “I’ll probably need my chiropractor tomorrow though,” I quipped.  As he began to update dispatch with the cancel request, I reiterated, “I don’t need a helicopter!  I just need medics.”  “She is out of the vehicle and standing,” I overheard my lieutenant say as I turned and began to give further instructions to the witnesses.  I later learned that since I had alerted dispatch that I was unable to open my driver’s side door, the call was placed in a pin status and the life flight helicopters had been alerted just in case.

By this point, the ambulance arrived.  I had a crash scene on my hands and needed to do my job.  But my supervisors and fellow officers insisted that I get checked out.  “We’ve got this,” was the implied message, “go take care of you.”  Not an easy order to follow for a cop.  I tossed out a couple of objections that went unheeded.  After passing along instructions regarding the contents of my car, into the ambulance I climbed.

I didn’t know that night how much this event would change my life.  It became the catalyst for the journey I have been on for the past several years.  It is a journey of discovery, of learning how to release my expectations, and choosing to shift my mindset from fear to one of gratitude.

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